After very many trials, lessons, and lectures, more or less difficult and tedious, the bird is taught to swim to a distance right ahead—to turn to one side when his master sings, and return to him when he whistles. These two primary and elementary movements, which appear so very natural, demand, nevertheless, wonderful patience, and no little cleverness and tact in the professor to instil—for his pupils, be it remembered, are ducks and geese—and furnishes an example of how the hope and love of gain has its effect on mankind. These very peasants, who never would take the trouble to learn their letters—only twenty-four—who would not many of them go two miles to learn how to sign their own names, pass whole days in the gray waters of these marshes, more often than not up to their waists in mud, whistling and singing and twitching the legs of their unfortunate birds, and nearly pulling them off with a string, when they either do not comprehend, or obey as quickly as they might, the orders they receive.
Dozens of ducks and geese that would in London or Paris be considered highly curious and infinitely wiser than any of their species—even those of the Capitol—are thus trained every year in Le Morvan, without any one giving them a thought, and may be purchased, education included, for two shillings a piece. When these winged students are so thoroughly qualified for their duties, that they can go through their exercise without a mistake, and are considered worthy of taking the field, the peasant puts them into his bag, and setting off very early in the morning to one of the great ponds I have mentioned, conceals himself behind a thick tufty curtain of flags, from whence he can see without being seen.
Here, opening his bag, he takes out the half suffocated ducks or geese, which are glad enough to find themselves once more on their favourite element; and the intelligent birds have scarcely regained their liberty when the peasant commences his ballad, and immediately the anchor is apeak and they are off; he sings, he whistles, and they turn, like two well-manned frigates, and come back to him without a moment's delay. The act is so natural, so simple, that no one can be attracted by it; nor is it possible to suspect a goose or a duck with its head down searching for food, that paddles about in the weeds or on the shore, or dabbles amongst the rushes. Should the keeper appear, the peasant is sure to be found lying on his back half asleep, or singing or whistling, as if mocking the lark in the clear blue sky above him.
Nevertheless, this goose, this duck, and this man are first-rate thieves,—cracksmen of their class; for the peasant, before he confides his poultry to the waves, makes their toilette; sliding under the left wing and over the right, across the body, like a soldier's belt, a strong and well-baited pike-hook. Thus equipped and ready for the start, the pirate birds leave on their buccaneering expedition; but they are scarcely a stone's throw from the shore, and well clear of the little islands of flags, when a hungry pike, observing the delicious frog towing in the rear, seizes it, and makes off to his hole, to gorge the bait at his leisure. More easily thought than done;—the goose stoutly resists, and refuses to accompany the fresh-water shark to his weedy home. A warm and obstinate engagement is the result; the peasant watches, with approving eye, the embarassment of his feathered accomplice, until he thinks it time to put an end to the scrimmage, when he whistles like an easterly wind in a passion. The goose, rather encumbered by the carnivorous gentleman below him, endeavours for some time but in vain to obey the signal; he flaps his wings, works away with his legs, and cackles without ceasing. The poacher encourages him with another whistle, and at length the bird, in spite of all his adversary's attempts to the contrary, leads the "greedy game of the deep" to the shore, and delivers it to his master. This is, certainly, a very curious mode of taking pike, and the live trimmer looks very puzzled when the voracious fish is hooked; but the following anecdote, taken from the scrap-book of Mr. M'Diarmid, shows that a Scotchman once adopted the same method, though for a different reason. "Several years ago," he writes, "a farmer, living in the immediate neighbourhood of Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, kept a gander, who not only had a great trick of wandering himself, but also delighted in piloting forth his cackling harem, to weary themselves in circumnavigating their native lake, or in straying amidst forbidden fields on the opposite shore. Wishing to check this flagrant habit, the farmer one day seized the gander just as he was about to spring upon the blue bosom of his favourite element, and tying a large fish-hook to his leg, to which was attached part of a dead frog, he suffered him to proceed upon his voyage of discovery. As had been anticipated, this bait soon caught the eye of a ravenous pike, which swallowing the deadly hook, not only arrested the progress of the astonished gander, but forced him to perform half-a-dozen summersets on the surface of the water! For some time, the struggle was most amusing—the fish pulling, and the bird screaming with all its might,—the one attempting to fly, and the other to swim, from the invisible enemy—the gander one moment losing and the next regaining his centre of gravity, and casting between whiles many a rueful look at his snow-white fleet of geese and goslings, who cackled out their sympathy for their afflicted commodore. At length Victory declared in favour of the feathered angler, who, bearing away for the nearest shore, landed on the smooth green grass one of the finest pike ever caught in the Castle Loch."
This adventure is said to have cured the gander of his desperate propensity for wandering.
CHAPTER XXII.
Village fêtes—The first of May—The religious festivals—The Fête Dieu—Appearance of the streets—The altars erected in them—Procession from the church—Country fairs—The book-stalls at them—Pictures of the Roman Catholic Church—Before the Vendange—Proprietors' hopes and fears—Shooting in the vineyards—The first day of the Vendange—Appearance of the country—Influx of visitors at this season—The consequences—Herminie—Her sad history—Le Morvan—Recommended to the English traveller—Lord Brougham and Cannes—Contrast between it and Le Morvan.
One of the happiest and most useful customs established by our ancestors, was, without doubt, the village fête—the periodical festival that takes place in every hamlet, and at which the inhabitants of the adjoining communes assemble on a specified day to foot it gaily in the dance and drink each other's health glass to glass in brimming bumpers. These joyous fêtes, a kind of fraternal and social invitation, which are given and accepted by the rural population when spring and verdure made their appearance, are held all over France, and rejoice every heart. In our day, though much shorn of its ancient revelry, and neglected, la fête du village is still kept up, for it is, so to speak, indigenous,—a part of our social habits, and like everything which carries within it a generous sentiment, is loved and cherished by the people. As the day approaches every village is suitably decorated, the women are all on the tip toe of excitement to see and be seen, the peasant throws dull care behind him, and the artizans in the nearest town work with renewed energy in order that they may do honour to the occasion. Every one, in short, makes his way to the rendezvous, a merry laugh on his lip and joy in his heart, and, lost in the tumult and general gaiety that prevail, all forget, for some few hours, their hard work and privations.